Staff Picks: All Time Top Vinyl & What I’m Listening To This Week

To give you, our customers, the chance to get to know the team behind eil.com, we like to let show you what we are about and what we have been listening to lately. This week is company director and head buyer, Julian Thomas.

What are your top five albums of all time?

I couldn’t pick 5 for ‘all time’ but certainly there are some that I keep going back to regularly – XTC ‘The Big Express’ / Blondie ‘Eat To The Beat’ / Ozric Tentacles ‘Jurassic Shift’ / Duran Duran ‘Wedding Album’ / Motorhead ‘No Sleep ‘til Hammersmith’ – but, ask me again next week and the list could be quite different.

No matter how embarrassing, what was the first piece of music you bought?

The first single I bought with my own money was Angelic Upstarts ‘I’m An Upstart’ on green vinyl – I still have it somewhere.

If you could take home one item we have in stock today, what would it be and why?

The only thing I’m keeping is the Queen NOTW 5ft tall Robot. I’ve bought some amazing things over the past 30+ years but thankfully I managed to shake off the collecting habit 20+ years ago. It’s great to chase & find stuff, do a deal and bring it in. That’s the thrill for me. However, once I’ve secured something the only logical thing to do is get it sold on to an appreciative owner. The Queen NOTW Robot is just so cool that even if you’re not a Queen collector it’s still a stylish piece of design. On the plus side, having decided to keep the Robot I then managed to buy another one, which we promptly sold and I know it’s gone to a great home.

Finally, does music really sound better on vinyl?

Nope! It’s certainly a different experience playing vinyl but not necessarily a better sound. There are so many variables too that could affect the sound you’re hearing. I still love vinyl because it’s the format that I grew up with and I love the artwork. It’s why we have so many record covers displayed here on the office walls. Plenty of room for vinyl, CDs, downloads, streaming and podcasts to co-exist, in my opinion.

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